Continuous And Comprehensive EvaluationIn Schools:
An Urgent Need For Capacity Building Of Teacher Competencies

By Swaleha Sindhi

06 September, 2013
Countercurrents.org

Introduction

While one of the major areas of school education is towards the all-round development of the child, least attention was paid to the educative process involved and to the assessment of students' personal development in spite of strong complaints from parents and community regarding the heavy school curricula. The National Policy on Education (1986) and the Programme of Action (1992) followed by the National Curriculum Framework of School Education (1986 and 2000) reiterated the need for developing the personal and social qualities in learners. They stressed the point that the evaluation should be comprehensive in nature, wherein all learning experiences pertaining to scholastic, co-scholastic and personal and social qualities are assessed. To make this happen the MHRD announced Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation system in 2009 and the Class X board exams made optional in 2011.

The main objective of the continuous and comprehensive evaluation (CCE) is the school- based evaluation of the pupil on a continuous process throughout the year and helps in checking all the standards of performance in both scholastic and co-scholastic areas. It necessitates the use of multiple evaluation techniques and tools in addition to certain conventional ones. There are 2 types of Assessments, in an academic year, to test the Scholastic areas: Formative Assessment (FA) and Summative Assessment (SA) Formative Assessment FA is carried out as a part of the instruction methodology and provides continuous feedback to both the teachers and the learners. It comprises of Class work, Homework, Oral questions, Quizzes, Projects, and Assignments/Tests etc. Thus, makes the provision of effective feedback and provides platform for the active involvement of students in their own learning process that leads to motivation and self-esteem of students. Summative Assessment Summative assessment is carried out at the end of a term. It measures how much a student has learnt from the course and is usually a graded test i.e. Examination.

Role of Teacher in improving Quality through CCE

A teacher is fundamental in bringing desired change while implementing the CCE system in the schools. It is based on the assumption that the teacher knows his pupils best and hence he/she should only be entrusted with the responsibility of evaluation. It provides an opportunity to teacher for regular diagnosis of learning difficulties followed by remedial measures, it involves analysis and interpretation of the evidences of achievement to arrive at right decision and make judgment. In every subject, students are assessed on the basis of certain competencies. A teacher can use a variety of tools (oral, projects, presentations) understand different learning styles and abilities, and share the assessment criteria with the students, allow peer and self-assessment and give an opportunity to the student to improve. Thus, continuous and comprehensive evaluation helps a classroom teacher in the following ways:

•  To identify learning difficulties and to improve students' learning through diagnosis of their performance.

Current Realities

Earning the confidence of the teachers in order to introduce the CCE framework has been tough. The teachers have to be trained professionally so that their judgment when made through an honest and objective appraisal without bias is the basis of CCE. Researches on evaluation practices stated that;

•  Evaluation practices carried out in schools are still conventional in their nature and purposes.

•  Continuous assessment in not followed systematically in those schools where teachers are trained in in-service programmes.

•  Competencies are not assessed through planned procedures of evaluation

•  Assessment of wrong things or the same range of things too often is carried out. One doesn't get a fair and realistic picture of what students have actually mastered.

•  Undue reliance on recall is found, rather than enabling the students to transfer and apply what they have learnt to different concepts and problems.

•  Formative feedback is not provided. Learning difficulties are not identified.

•  The personal and social qualities are totally ignored due to lack of awareness of what to be evaluated and how to evaluate.

•  Remedial instruction is not provided.

•  The in-service programmes planned for the teachers have inadequate inputs in evaluation and do not create avenues for practical exercises during the training sessions.

In school education system, the conduct of examination and evaluation for the promotion to next higher classes is an important activity, not merely transacting curriculum in the classroom; it doesn't bring an improvement in students learning.

Need for improving Teacher Competencies

The Times of India dated 5 th Sept 2013 , in an article “Teachers Prove Poor Students” stated that only 3% of the 1.5 lakh teachers who appeared in the ‘Teacher's eligibility Test' (TET) 2012 could secure pass marks in Gujarat . This is indeed an alarming sign; that only a Bachelor's Degree in education (B.Ed) does not equip teachers to do justice with the learners. What is required at the war front is the long term professional development of teachers in the form of in-service teacher training programmes. Thus, what is required is the Capacity Building of teacher competencies. It is all about developing the skills, knowledge, and the capacity of teachers to respond to challenges in school. In Capacity Building each teacher can take more integrated partnering role, bringing together their combined commitment and strengths in order to create a better work environment. This can involve coordinating, organizing, or as fundamental as helping other colleagues, dealing with a workplace problem, to find the help they need. It is about each person doing their part to make a positive impact in the workplace. In case of CCE the urgent need is to equip teachers with certain competencies that can help them implement the new system in its true spirit. The teachers need to be trained on the following important areas;

•  Careful examination of the course, and specification of competencies to be attained by the learners in terms of knowledge, understanding, application (analysis, synthesis, evaluation for higher grades) and skill performance.

•  Knowledge and ability to construct assessment tools that are criterion based appropriate for assessing the competencies.

•  Careful planning of the competency based teaching procedures. There should be congruence between teaching and assessment.

•  Comprehensive evaluation of competencies as well as personality traits and attitudes.

Conclusion

Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation has been fruitful in improving the evaluation skills of the teachers which is a very important competence expected of them to raise the standards of achievement in pupils by constant feedback, remediation, and improvement of classroom instructional strategies based on the evaluation results, this in turn resulting in improvement of quality of education. It is important to equip the teachers with required skills and competencies of evaluation so that they would be able to integrate evaluation well with their teaching- learning process, assist students in the attainment of required standards through proper guidance, feedback and remediation.

(Ms.Swaleha Sindhi is an Assistant Professor in The. M.S.University of Baroda , her area of research interest is Quality Assurance in education. Secondary Education and Management of Education, Email:[email protected], mob: +91-9725727292)

 

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